Sunday, November 21, 2004

Bush Is Lord In the immortal words of Trent Reznor: Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve. That's especially true if you honestly believe on any level that Dubya is Lord. Unfortunately I'm sure there are plenty of folks out there who believe Bush is leading them to the promised land.  Folks at Halliburton, for instance. Related link: The Church of Bush 6:17:51 PM     |

An Eye For An Eye Or at least two Mr. Happy's for $1,250. All I can add to that is this:  Kids, crime doesn't pay. 4:45:48 PM     |

Look To Soccer The answer to what happened in Detroit Friday night is easy:  the NBA needs to come down hard on the players, teams, and fans just as soccer does. In soccer if the fans cannot control themselves, then the fans are banned from the stadiums.  Sometimes individuals are banned for life from ever attending another soccer match in their country.  Some are banned from even flying out of the country to attend soccer matches in other countries when their national team is playing abroad.  That's what should happen to the fans that came onto the court or are identified as throwing things at the players. If the players can't control themselves, then they need plenty of time to attend anger management sessions.  So give them the next 365 days off to think about how stupid they were.  Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Jermaine O'Neal, and Ben Wallace shouldn't be allowed to put on a team uniform until at least Thanksgiving 2005.  Hell, Rio Ferdinand of Manchester United recently served a ban from football for eight months for missing a drug test.  Adrian Mutu of Chelsea was fired from his team and then banned worldwide for failing a drug test.  That's how hard soccer comes down when the players screw around, and they didn't punch anyone.  They were just getting high.  Shoot, if the NBA kicked out all the players who were smoking dope, they'd have to televise one-on-one pick-up games. As far as the teams go, if they can't control the fans or their players, keep the two sides apart.  Make Detroit play its home games in front of empty seats.  That's what has already happened to AS Roma this year when a fan threw a coin at a ref.  The opposing team was given a 3-0 victory and Roma had to play their next two international matches in an almost empty stadium.  After losing a couple of million in ticket and concession sales, Detroit will make sure they have plenty of security the next time around.  Or you can ban the whole team from competing.  Your players and fans don't know how to act?  Then you don't get to play.  That's what happened to a soccer team from Georgia earlier this year.  Detroit can go watch Lions games the rest of the winter. So there you have it.  If the NBA doesn't come down extremely hard on the players, teams, and fans, then they're just begging for this sort of thing to happen again.  Do like soccer, and maybe it won't happen again soon. Related links: ESPN:  Brawlers' punishment should be modeled on soccer SI:  Ugly brawl leads to four indefinite suspensions 10:24:07 AM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.